The London conference has called into question the EU’s relevance as an actor in Afghanistan.  Most EU member states continue to view their commitment to Afghanistan almost exclusively through a NATO prism. By contrast, they have severely neglected the EU’s Policing Mission in Afghanistan. In London Cathy Ashton looked and was treated very much as a fringe player.  Former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has counseled Barack Obama that in spite of the passage of the Lisbon Treaty “strategic cooperation on a global scale is not possible with a partner that not only has not defined and authoritative political leadership but also lacks an internal consensus regarding its world role.” 
The EU’s future as a credible security player is being undermined by the continuing under-resourcing of its contribution to Afghanistan’s governance and security. This is not where the EU needs to be with regard to the greatest overseas security test of its member states. 
Fortunately it appears that much of the work in drafting a new vision of a greatly improved EU contribution to Afghanistan has already been done under the Swedish Presidency.  The Council has correctly identified areas of comparative advantage for the EU in Afghanistan and Pakistan – civil and political capacity building, electoral reform, police training, judicial reform and agricultural development. 
It is now up to Ashton to take these proposals forward during 2010. The Swedish-brokered Action Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan is a good one, but one which continues to lack the resources to make a major difference.  The €500 million commitment by the EU over three years to both countries under the Action Plan is a fraction of the overall international aid effort, which in the case of Afghanistan totalled over €4.5 billion for 2009 alone.  Ashton has yet to make the case for consolidating member state assistance within an EU framework. 
Post the London conference, there is an outstanding need to improve EU-NATO coherence and securing more European resources for an enhanced Security Sector Reform (SSR) commitment. The EU, NATO and the UN must all operate according to the same agenda and with a more clearly defined division of labor. Meanwhile, the opportunity for greater linkage between the EU’s regional programme in Central Asia and those in Afghanistan has not yet been seized. The extension of the Taliban insurgency to the West and North of Afghanistan has grave consequences for neighbouring countries, yet there are insufficient linkages between the EU’s Central Asia strategy including its border management programe (BOMCA) and those in Afghanistan.  
2010 is the make or break year for the international commitment to Afghanistan.  Following years of neglect, where the opportunity to build Afghan capacity was squandered, the message from London was resoundingly clear: European leaders get it, even if their electorates do not, and are willing to spend political capital in order not to endanger Europe’s security interests through a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the conflict in which European security has most at stake.  The EU now needs to demonstrate that post-Lisbon it now has the capacity to respond accordingly. There is a strong argument to be made for member states to pool resources within a greatly enhanced EU capacity-building programme at the national level. Afghans have consistently voiced corruption as their number one priority, even ahead of security concerns. Ultimately such a contribution could mean more in terms of undermining the insurgency than any military operation. As British Foreign Minister David Miliband put it, in Afghanistan “The danger is being out-governed, rather than outgunned.”

Edward Burke is a researcher at the European think-tank FRIDE

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